Ria Bridges

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Smashwords book reviews by Ria Bridges

The Comfort of the Shriek
on April 30, 2011
Wow. Just... wow! I was truly impressed by this story, the way it blended madness with possibility, the reality and despair of the situation that the reader finds themselves stumbling through.
The main character, Ryan, is a member of an apocalyptic cult that finds a statue in the swamp, which the priest of the cult declares to be an angel of God sent to bring the end times. Ryan hears the angel whisper in his mind, telling him to love her and to obey her. The cult, as is common, goes through an elaborate poison-drinking ritual to reach Heaven before God rains down his wrath on the world, and only Ryan plans on surviving, to finish off anybody who had second thoughts, because this is what the angel wanted.
You spend the story thinking that Ryan's insane, but every once in a while you get little hints that make you start to wonder if perhaps there's a method to his madness, if there really is something sinister about that statue. The ending reveals the truth, clearly and without room for doubt, but without going into an overly-long explanation of everything that happened.
Stylistically, I can't find fault with this story at all. The language chosen was good, the pacing smooth and even. Even the formatting, which can be hit-or-miss with what you download from Smashwords, was dead-on. This is a story by someone with talent and dedication, and with a single exception, all of his stories on Smashwords are free, so I highly recommend you go and take a look at what he's written. This is someone who can clearly go far, and I want to be there when it happens!